We have recently discovered that certain important physiologic conditions associated with vision, including very early degradation stages of macular metabolic condition, and/or of related neuron-path malfunction, may be detected through the implementation of a simple and easily applied eye test using a special form of moving-pattern, or moving-element, image projected onto an eye's central field to illuminate that field.
The present invention involves that discovery, and relates to features of and in a system and a methodology for implementing the discovery.
Specifically what we have learned is that when the central field of the eye in a subject, also referred to herein as a test subject, is illuminated with certain, predetermined, defined-configuration motion imagery, a patient's perception of this imagery may possess a patient-reportable distortion—a change in the perception image in relation to the source projection image, which change is interpretable specifically to indicate malfunctioning, and especially early-stage malfunctioning, of the macula/paramacula and/or the associated neural pathways. Experimental testing of this methodology has established, as suggested above, its capability for furnishing early warnings about (indications of) degradations in the physiologic condition of these two, vision-communication structures—degradations which are clearly associated with the health of an eye and of the eye's associated communication to the brain.
More specifically, our invention is based upon the discovery that a specially-controlled moving test image (a source image) of spaced, contrasting, alternately light and dark lines which is caused to impinge/illuminate the central field in a person's eye may generate, for the person who's eye is being tested, a changed or distorted perceived, or perception, image possessing an image-regional distortion, or change, that appears to be based effectively upon a time delay in the communication to the brain of a portion (typically within the macula) of the central field which is illuminated by the test image.
In the disclosure of the present invention herein, the term “central field” is employed to refer to the collected structures of the macula and the paramacula in an eye. This central field, which is generally circular in perimetral outline, will be referred to as having a central axis that, essentially, may be visualized as being an axis of revolution of the central-field outline. The neural pathways which are referred to herein are to be understood as being those communication pathways that extend between (a) the structural elements which make up the central field, and in particular, those which make up the macula/paramacula, and (b) the brain.
The term “macula” herein should be understood to include reference to the paramacula.
The term “illuminating”, etc., also referred to as “impinging”, etc., refers to placing a test image onto an eye's central field. Such an image is referred to herein as possessing a predetermined, stable spatial configuration, and this phraseology is intended to refer to a source test image which, while being selectively adjustable to possess different specific characteristics, has a “stability”, or consistency, with regard to those characteristics in relation to its being directed onto, to illuminate, an eye's central field.
The term “perception image”, etc., refers herein to that image which a test subject “sees” when an eye's central field is illuminated with a stable test image. This perception image may vary from the stable test image by appearing to be changed, or distorted. Such a change, or distortion, will typically have a particular lateral boundary which resides with a particular lateral shape, and a particular position, within the overall perceived field of the illuminating test image.
With regard to the creation, projection, and interpretive use generally of a special, moving test image, practice of the invention, as will be explained below, contemplates allowance for the selective changing and manipulation of various projectable test-image parameters. For each test image employed, the person tested is asked to describe, and preferably also to sketch an outline, and identify the location, of any perceived image distortion. As will be seen, this reported information may be used to characterize and locate an eye's central-field/neural pathways disfunctionality issues. Different test images, as will be mentioned again below, are useful in furnishing “different points of view” regarding any such issues.
Adjustments of and changes in the mentioned test image may also be performed, typically though not necessarily manually, in a kind of feedback manner, based upon a person's reported, perceived image difference or distortion, to effect counteractive changes in the character per se of a new original, source test image—all for the purpose of creating, for the person under test, an end-result perceived image which is deemed, by that person, as exactly as possible to replicate what is understood to be an otherwise “unmodified” (i.e., non-feedback-manipulated) source test image. Thus, and in this context, the invention contemplates allowing for the performance of image-control processing in relation to the generation of a source test image, whereby, as far as the patient (or person)-perceived image is concerned, that image has all previously reported distortion effectively removed from it. This capability of the methodology and systemic structure of this invention allows for the obtaining of quantitative data which is useful in describing and understanding the nature of any macular, and/or related neural pathway, deficiencies that may be responsible for perception-image distortion.
These and other important features and advantages which are attained by the structure and the practice of the present invention will become more fully apparent as the detailed description of the invention which shortly follows below is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.